When not doing client work, I experiment with new ideas, products and so on, and so there are time and development costs and more misses than hits.
Admittedly, I'm not a materialist guy, but my point is knowing a lot of tech stuff and working long hours doesn't guarantee wealth. I might even be better off financially if I didn't know this stuff.
Are you creating a similar setup? Are you able to compete by having a site made for $100 in under an hour? If not, you can still make money in this space, but you're going to have to be high end. Your clientèle will have to be high end. They will have to be willing to pay high end prices too. And let's not forget that there are many competitors aiming for this exact space. What differentiates you from them? Can you buy/merge with them? All things to consider.
What's his added value? In an Internet world, all such work where the customer doesn't see his added value (other than "buy american" or some such) should go to the country with cheapest skilled labor. Unless he's working in person and gives that as his added value (neither the Indians nor my Uruguayan friends will be able to compete then).
Right now, I'm looking to get away from web-focused work. That's why I'm working on my own stuff, but it all takes time.
Doing X for $Y without using X for a potential income in the future becomes a zero-sum game.
This potential income can come from anything that gets squeezed out from the project -- writing a tutorial based on the last web design project, kicking off an opensource project to combine the reusable parts.
For me it's a hard discipline to follow and takes some creativity but it does sound like a good deliberate practice.